PERHAPS the most worrying thing for Cavan last Sunday was how poorly they reacted to Derry’s attacking changes in the first-half.
In the opening 10 minutes, the blue wall looked solid. Conor Moynagh was being allowed to sit free in front of his full-back line and, with Enda Henry and Barry Doyle both offering help when they lost the ball, Cavan soaked up the early pressure quite comfortably.
In the opening minutes, Derry looked quite one-dimensional. Ryan Bell and Cailean O’Boyle were inside. Thus far in the McKenna Cup, the tactic of delivering early ball to the full-forward line had worked well for Damian Barton’s men. They’re big units those two.
The delivery early on was grand, but Bell and O’Boyle were simply outnumbered. They did well to each win a couple of balls but, largely, Cavan looked to have the measure of it. That was until Derry started to change it up. While Ryan Bell’s penalty came off a sliced, wayward shot from Ryan Ferris that broke nicely for Gareth McKinless, they had already begun to show more signs of running the ball by that stage.
Moving Chrissy McKaigue to full-back to deal with David Givney also helped the victors. Cavan had been making the ball stick fairly well on the counter early on, but McKaigue’s aerial strength and the superb display of Dermot McBride left the Breffni attack totally frustrated for much of the game.
When they started to run the ball out of defence, and alternated those moves with an odd early kick, it left Cavan in a catch-22. Their sweepers didn’t know whether to press the bodies coming inside the 45 or stay dropping off just in front of O’Boyle, as had been effective early on.
In the end, they simply became overrun. The pressure on the kick coming in was poor and it allowed Derry to exploit the indecision in Terry Hyland’s defence. Ryan Bell moved out to help with the running game, and did so to great effect, but Derry always made sure to have someone pushed in alongside O’Boyle, be it Kearns, Lynn or, very briefly, James Kielt.
By half-time, it was Cavan who were struggling to have any real effect from their attack. Gearóid McKiernan kicked a couple of stunning efforts and Conor Moynagh landed one of his own, but their attacking play on the whole was poor. They resorted quite early to just thumping a hopeful ball on top of David Givney and, with McKaigue fit for the aerial battle and plenty of support around, Derry dealt with it comfortably.
Moving Killian Clarke - who had a fine game on the whole - out to midfield helped them draw a bit more joy from their running game in the second-half. Ciarán Brady was involved in so many of their attacks, to the point where Derry ended up pushing corner-back Ciarán Mullan briefly up on to him in an attempt to stop his raids.
They were a more effective attacking unit when they pushed out man-for-man after the break, but they were there for the taking at the back and Derry were disappointed at their own wastefulness in that second period.
Video: the best goals from the two McKenna Cup semi-finals
